The evening wore on; Matthias went home, and at Clara’s request Aunt Hildy occupied a room with her down stairs, Louis carrying her tenderly to her couch as if she were a child.

Sleep came toward us with laggard steps through the long night; Louis seemed to realize it all so plainly, and my heart was in my throat.  I tried to hope, and when at last I fell asleep I wandered in dreams to a wondrous fountain, whose silvery spray fell before me as a gleaming promise, and I thought its murmuring music whispered, “she will live,” and her Louis Robert, who stood near me, constantly sang the same sweet words.  I believe my dream really comforted me, for when I woke it clung to me still, and “she will live” rang in my ears like a sweet bell chime.

We found her better and like herself, but the lower limbs were cold as marble, heavy also and without feeling, and we knew it was, as she had said, “paralysis.”

“Now I am to be a burden, my Emily mother, and oh, if you had not called me back, I would have gone to the hills with Louis Robert!  It was not fancy nor delirium, for I knew that my body was falling.  I saw him when he came and whispered ‘now, darling, now,’ and when I lost your faces, he raised me in his arms, and I was going, oh! till somebody breathed upon me, and warm drops like rain touched my cheek, and I heard your hearts all say, ‘we cannot have it.’  This like a strong hand drew me back, and I thought I must come and say good-bye for a comfort to you all.  So Louis Robert, with his great love waiting for me there, drew himself away and kindly said, ’I will wait,’—­then a mist came between us, and I opened my eyes to see you all around me.”

“Oh, Clara! how can we ever let you go?”

“Ah, my beloved ones!  I only go a little before you, and if you knew how sweet it will be to be strong, you would say, because you love me, ’I may go.’  I have many things to say—­and I shall remain with you a time, and may, I fear, weary you.  I am glad Louis is strong.”

It was pitiful to see the patience with which she bore her suffering.  There was no pain, she said, but it was a strange feeling not to be alive—­and she would look at her limbs and say, “Poor flesh, you are not warm any more.”  We had one of her crimson-cushioned easy chairs arranged to suit her needs, and in this she could be rolled about.  She sat at the table with us and I kept constantly near her, and tried to shield her from any extra excitement.  When on the thirteenth day of April, news reached us of the blow which, the day before, had fallen on Sumter, we feared to let her know it.  But her spirit quickened into the clearest perception possible, divined something, and obliged us to tell her.

She said:  “I knew it would come, I have felt it for years, and when the cruel sacrifice is finished, liberty will arise, and over the ashes of the slain will say, ‘Let the bond go free.’”

Ben’s eyes looked as Hal’s did, when he left us for Chicago, and he whispered to me: